Falling Sky

Wall-E...

...came out today in the UK.

...knocked my socks right off (not literally, that would be silly).

...paints an astonishingly powerful picture of a future that's the inevitable result of unsustainably high levels of consumption. There's images in the first half hour that are literally breathtaking in the sense of desolation.

...is also incredibly romantic and achingly sweet, yet never clichéd, forced or obvious.

...makes holding hands seem like the most wonderful thing.

...never, ever, ever gets dull.

...makes you appreciate the colour green and the freshness of nature when you've taken it for granted all your life.

...is the best film Pixar have ever made.

...needs to be seen by myself a second time (at least) to write a remotely coherent review.

...pushes computer animation film-making to a point which frankly blows my mind, and leaves other CG animation feature efforts stumbling feebly like cheap straight-to-video guff (Fly Me To The Moon and Space Chimps, I'm looking at you... and frowning).

...is the closest a mainstream movie has come to silent cinema in decades.

...made my eyes well up on three different occasions, which is some sort of record.

...is a masterpiece, a true work of art that transcends animation and cinema.

...should make sales of Hello Dolly leap (well I'll be, it was Michael Crawford).

...must be seen at the cinema. Must must must. The level of detail in the visuals, the use of sound, the sheer spectacle and scale of it - not an inch of cinema screen is wasted.

...ends happily, but there'll be points when you can't imagine how it will.

...is at least the equal of the Iron Giant, which is insanely high praise.

...made me so glad I was watching it with my girl and holding her hand.

...could well be the best film I've ever seen. But I've got to go again. And again. And again.

...should be seen by every man, woman and child on this little planet. Including you.

You'll Never Live In A Penthouse Again

[REC]

A few weeks back I went along to see George Romero's Diary of the Dead, having enjoyed his previous films. It was shit. Pretentious, pedestrian, shallow and hypocritical, it's biggest crime was failing to be remotely thrilling or scary. Having started the year with a cracking piece of handheld terror in the form of Cloverfield, it was infuriating to see how flawed Diary was, given its potential. I came away from it thoroughly narked and imagining how good, how intense, how scary a good bloody zombie film could be filmed handheld, if only it were done right.

Thank fuck, then, for [REC], a Spanish film that's been doing the festival rounds since last year but just got a UK release this weekend. At 85 minutes it's brief, breathless and incredibly efficient, the majority of the film set in just one tenement location. It has no message, no moral, and being near-real-time there's hardly enough time for character development, narrative twists or any of that malarky. Instead, like the aforementioned Cloverfield, it's more of an experience, a ghost train par excellence, the film a device to run the audience through a wringer of tension and fear. And, praise the lords, it works.

The less you know of the plot the more satisfying it'll be - I had little idea what happens in it aside from TV crew with firemen gets trapped inside a tenement building and things get badly, bloodily wrong. And, oh lordy, does it. As with Cloverfield, the opening 15 minutes are deliberately quite bland and uneventful - of course, we know something's going to happen sometime, but it's the wait that lets the tension start to build. It cranks up that much further once things do start happening, delivering a few superb "HOLY FUCK!!" moments on the way. The premise and actual use of handheld filming is extremely believable in this film, moreso than parts of Cloverfield and far more so that Diary, becoming increasingly more frantic and desperate as the film progresses. Likewise, by being restricted to just one location, a feeling of intense claustrophobia and panic is built up. [REC] definitely deserves to be seen in the cinema, with surprisingly effective use of sound and the moments of darkness all the more powerful for being near-absolute. It's not particularly gory but still not for squeamish types or those unlikely to enjoy an hour of sustained terror (now, why does that sound so strange?).

[REC] is very much a film to experience, to react to, rather than sit back and watch passively - as it progressed I became aware of adrenaline in my veins, muscles tensed and eyes boggling just that little bit wider than usual. There's an American remake of it out due in October which, if it follows previous US remakes of non-English-langauge horror, will be more polished, more CGI'd and far less effective (still, you never know), . Horror fans should leap at the chance to catch this at the cinema, as should anyone who liked Cloverfield and fancies something a little harder. Indeed, just like Cloverfield and 28 Weeks Later the film seems focused primarily on terrorising the audience, rather than the subtler drawn-out fear of The Orphanage (still on, still essential). This reaches its climax in a truly dread-filled final 15 minutes that manages to give some fascinating context as to what's been happening and deliver a really, really disturbing sight that's been replaying in my brain at bedtime for the last two nights. Not enough to bring on sleepless nights - no film's managed that - and I'm bloody glad I've had no nightmares featuring said sight, but remarkable nonetheless. It's rare enough to have one film come out and give me the willies, but two within a month of each other? Happy days!

Not-bad teaser trailer below (it doesn't contain any footage from the actual film, but you'll get the idea...)

Death Is Not The End

THE ORPHANAGE (EL ONFANATO)

Now, here's a treat & a half, most likely one of the best films this year and surely the spookiest of them all. There's plenty of films that can gross me out (in that sickly-enjoyable way), but films that can scare? That can provoke a genuine sense of supernatural dread, fear and near-unbearable tension? Very, very few - in recent memory, the only examples I can think of are the original Ringu, the narratively nonsensical but effectively terrifying Ju On and, er, that's it. Far as I'm concerned there's very few frights to be found in films, certainly in the last decade. For example, while Pan's Labyrinth is undoubtedly an excellent film, I never found it scary as such, and the recent Diary of the Dead provoked no emotions beyond boredom, frustration and the odd flash of gory glee.

So when I say The Orphanage is a genuinely scary film, that's high praise indeed. All the more remarkable is that it does so without sacrificing characterisation or plot, as Ringu and Ju On both did. Eschewing the increasingly tedious explicit horror of the Saw franchise et al, this film instead takes its cues from Hitchcock's best thrillers, cranking up tension and dread through the simplest ways, hardly ever revealing anything actually horrific on screen (but when it does... FUCK!). It taps into the unease of being alone in a house at night, echoing childhood fear of buildings in the dark, how nothing more than the groaning of floorboards and creaking of doors can become something unspeakably terrible in your imagination. This is very, very effectively manipulated by this film, all the more so in the cinema when these creaks and groans seem to surround you completely. The other, primal terror this film taps into is that of losing your child. I found this quite affecting, so goodness only knows what it's like for parents.

Beyond that, I don't really want to say any more about the story, because it is so compelling, so surprising as it unfolds. If you're going to see The Orphanage - and by god you should, unless you don't like genuinely scary ghost stories - then stay the hell away from any reviews that go into details. The less you know, the more satisfying it will be, no doubt about it. Suffice to say it's an excellent film on all levels - the acting is superb, especially the children, while the cinematography and sound design are key in building up the suspense that makes it so tense, fearful and, ultimately, incredibly satisfying experience. Go to the cinema, watch & enjoy, come home, put all the lights on, spray WD40 on every door hinge and ban your kids from ever wearing masks. Just to be sure.

(Half a teacake lost due to unnecessarily shaky cam at one point - otherwise, perfect!)

Happy Beaster!

Ah yes, it's that glorious time of the year when we all give thanks and celebrate that very special day 15 years ago when Bob Mould, David Barbe and Malcolm Travis, recording as Sugar, released the mighty Beaster. Still clobbers the crap out of most modern releases on the rado - if you don't believe me, slap on the howling Tilted, the shattering JC Auto and the air-punching bounce of Feeling Better. Just to make things sweeter, Mr Mould will be playing in Glasgow later this year touring his new album, with the promise of some old classics popping up in the setlist. Hallelujah!

We've marked this celebratory holiday in pretty much the same way we'd spend any Sunday. For the most part we've been hunkered down in our flat keeping cosy, especially with the Burd feeling a bit peaky the last couple of days, but I did scamper out to the gym this morning followed by a typically top-notch brunch at the Caley. The paintings are all having a day off to dry, with one of them finally completed (a smaller version of this, it'll go on sale in a few weeks time once dry to the touch) and another all-but-done, a gift for the Orcadian couple who put us up in 2006, with the rest due for another seeing-to tomorrow before the study seamlessly transforms into a guest room later this week. The Moby painting mentioned below has been somewhat revised since Friday as I try and nail the composition down to satisfaction - there's been plenty of teeth-grinding frustration while staring at the canvas furiously, but I should have it sorted by this time tomorrow and be ready to start bringing it together for completion in April.

Entertainment-wise, we just finished watching the animated perfection that is Ratatouille for the first time since we caught it's premiere at the EIFF last year. It's an incredible work of art, as intelligent and witty an animated film as I can think of, and the depiction of Paris is stunning. If you've not seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to set aside a couple of hours and savour the film. How satisfying to have an animated feature that doesn't insult your intelligence - quite the reverse, it credits you with sense, taste and an appreciation for something beyond crass laughs. Just don't watch it on an empty stomach - knowing that it's just a collection of pixels doesn't stop the food from looking succulent, delicious and bursting with taste.

The DVD extras are certainly worth a look afterwards, whether you're a foodie, animation nerd, or neither. There's a genuinely fascinating making-of short that highlights the working similarities between Brad Bird, director of the film (and all-round hero of mine), and Thomas Keller, chef at the French Laundry. Equally interesting is a feature on the work that went into capturing the 'feel' of Paris for the film - not just the Eiffel Tower, but details on the ground, cobblestones, sewer grates, granite steps worn down over centuries. Bugger, now I'll have to get the Art of book. But the highlight has to be Your Friend The Rat, an 11 minute animation that uses CG, 2D, stop-motion and live-action to tell the history of rats alongside humans. It's a huge amount of fun, taking the visual invention you see in Pixar film credits that much further. Well worth getting yourself the 2 disc DVD from HMV, as they've included some surprisingly snazzy Ratatouille art cards of stylistic concept art, ripe for framing and hanging in the kitchen. Very nice, even if it does leave me wistful about my non-existent career in animation and what those four years of animation study were for. Still, que sera sera - and besides, I was never anywhere near good enough to have worked for the two studios I truly admire, Pixar and Ghibli. Most likely I'd have ended up scraping a living animating tacky cartoon toy adverts 18 hours a day and loathing myself for selling out. The civil service seems pretty sweet by comparison.

Coming up? Tonight we'll be finishing off the last of the divine Montezuma chocolate that the Dunn's gave me for my 30th - by god, that stuff is good, especially the wonderful Dark Milk Chocolate. Off to The Orphanage tomorrow for what promises to be some quality spooking, along with more aforementioned painting. Over to Glasgow later in the week to help Rob & co with moving house while the Lass keeps Emily, the coolest 1-year-old on Earth, amused. I'll be glad when April rolls around - the winter here in Scotland seems to have been around for ages and I could really do with some warmth. On the horizon, there's Portishead in Edinburgh a few weeks away (I've heard their new album and it's a stunner, so ordering this was pretty much inevitable) and, weather permitting, the start of my year of zoo sketching which should make this blog a bit more visually interesting. As for now, I'm off to do the washing-up before digging out that old Tilted/JC Auto (live) 7" and popping it on the turntable for the first time in years. Praise Bob!

Blood For Oil

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

I should've written this weeks ago, especially after seeing the film a second time on my birthday, but to be honest I found the film so overwhelming it's taken this long just to form the right words into a review that goes beyond "WUHHH! BUH GUH DUHHH!!"

So, off we go. There Will Be Blood. There's no way of writing about it without resorting to the same epic overblown imagery that all the other reviews use - it really is the only feasible way of conveying what the film is and does. It's EPIC. Sodding HUGE. And yet it has a cast of tens, not thousands, with no immense historical event to pivot around, no computer-generated armies bashing the pixels out of each other. Instead, it's an inverted epic, an all-encompassing gaze on just one central character, and how that character deals with the people and the world around him. Comparisons with Citizen Kane are well-suited, both in terms of scope and quality.

TWTB, if you don't already know, revolves around the life of one Daniel Plainview, an ambitious oil man in the opening decades of the 20th century. Loosely based on the 1927 novel "Oil!" by Upton Sinclair, the film follows him from 1898 to 1927 as he becomes increasingly successful. It's not a story I want to delve too deeply into because I got a lot of joy from watching it and not knowing where on earth it would be going, but it's incredibly compulsive and fascinating up to the final moment. So utterly focused on the central character, the film only has room for a handful of others, who come into contact with Plainview in different ways. It's a character study of a film, but it's the scope of that study and the raging, relentless, increasingly sociopathic of that character that makes this such a breathless epic. Such a film lives or dies by that central performance - good thing that Plainview is played to Oscar-winning perfection by Daniel Day-Lewis. Beyond acting, it seems as though Day-Lewis is Plainview - when you look at his face, caked with oil, eyes blazing, lit only by fire, it's a remarkable sight. Later, there's a stunning moment when Plainview comes to silently realise something, and it's all told in his face, every emotion as clear as if it were spoken. He may not be an attractive character - indeed, the film is ultimately a study of his rejection of humanity, his ugliness increasing with his wealth - but by god is he compulsive.

Along with the performances, there's so much to enjoy in this film. It's an incredibly well shot film, capturing these vast sun-baked rocky landscapes so completely you can almost feel the heat rising off the ground. The little scraps of civilisation - railroads, huts, derricks - seem so puny and fragile against this immense vista that demands to be seen on a big, big screen. There's a standout scene in the film when a derrick bursts into fire that has to be one of the most genuinely breathtaking and thrilling sequences I've seen in cinema, ranking alongside the beacon-lighting of Return of the King and the train journey in Spirited Away. It's that good.

And, oh, the sound, the sound. With a soundtrack composed by Jonny 'Radiohead' Greenwood that sounds like nothing else out there (save perhaps his Bodysong soundtrack from a few years back, which this seriously improves on), scenes which might otherwise appear plain and serene become tense, anxious, on the verge of something dreadful. When the fire rages, percussion rattles furiously in the background, increasingly intense (sadly not included in the soundtrack album, damn it all).

TWTB is, without any doubt, the best film I've seen in quite a few years. It got even better on the second viewing and I hope to catch it a third time while it's still on at the local - as good as it'll be on DVD, it belongs on a huge cinema screen as wide as the ambitions of the film itself. That first time, I came out really quite staggered, dumbstruck - I knew I'd seen a masterpiece, but wasn't so sure how actually I felt about it - did I enjoy it, or just admire it? The second time there was no such question - I loved it, every frame. Knowing what was coming actually gives you more time to appreciate what you're watching, hearing and feeling. It's so good, not even five out of five teacakes is enough so, for the first time ever:

Lars Von Trier's Godzilla

CLOVERFIELD

Anyone who shimmied by Falling Sky back in July last year would've read me yelping with typically over-enthusiastic excitement about a trailer for an as-then-unnamed film that had stuff going boom, the Statue of Liberty's noggin bowling down a Manhattan street and not much more. A few months later I was equally tickled by the full-length trailer. What I saw reminded me of the first hour of Spielberg's War of the Worlds, that sense of mass panic and chaos, little people and giant forces. Initial hopes that the monstrousness might be connected to HP Lovecraft's mighty Cthluhu turned out to be utterly unfounded, but even so I was really looking forward to seeing this.

I'm a sucker for all things chaotic, destructive and apocalyptic, as long as they're fictional (by contrast, I like reality to be calm, quiet and full of gentle pleasantness), and I'm pleased to say that Cloverfield delivered all that in spades. Granted, there's about fifteen minutes of increasingly ho-hum hipster-partyness at the beginning that does a satisfactory job of a) introducing the characters and b) ratcheting up the tension as you wonder just when things are going to kick off. And then they do - hurray! - with that whopping explosion seen in the trailer. Once the camera hits the ground running, so does the film and it barely lets up for the remaining hour.

The seemingly-amateurish camerawork belies what must have been an awful amount of post-production work - Cloverfield could almost be Dogme 95, if you didn't know better, seemingly relying on available light and locations. Obviously it does nothing of the sort, but the fact that it does a convincing job of looking like the found footage it purports to be, given the images and sounds it contains, is a technical marvel. There's an almost overwhelming sense of panic and delirious confusion at certain points in this film, reminiscent of the bleakest moments in last year's 28 Weeks Later. The monster, only briefly seen for most of the film, is a fascinating piece of design and movement (watch for the almost bat-like-motion it makes when seen from the helicopter) and it brings along some vile little predator beasties that make for a particularly taut scene underground. Some may be frustrated by the lack of any explanation for where the creature has come from, but I got a thrill from being as in the dark as the characters in the film, making it that bit easier to empathise with their confusion and terror. There's plenty of clues on the backstory out there in internetland, and it's the kind of thing that DVD extras are made for, but it's refreshing to not have everything served up to you in clunky exposition for once.

Ultimately, Cloverfield does exactly what it sets out to do with efficiency and startling ruthlessness. It's not great cinema as such, the experience of watching it taking priority over story or character - in a sense, it's more like a relentless thrill ride and cinematic experiment rolled into one. This isn't a criticism in any way though - the result is a genuinely effective monster movie that depicts a clichéd story from a fresh perspective, throwing the audience out of the usual comfort zone and deep into the action. What's more, it stays true to the confused dread that pervades it, with as perfectly nihilistic an ending as I could've hoped for (and I found the last few words surprisingly moving, but maybe I'm just an old softie these days). With the aforementioned War of the Worlds I was thrilled and stunned by the blistering first half, only to have it damn near ruined by the sort of ridiculous, cheesy super-happy ending that can mar so many Hollywood films. Cloverfield delivers on the promise of War of the Worlds and never lets up, never relents, never disappoints - and considering all those hopes I had for it, that's some achievement. More of this sort of thing!

The Final Cut

I've been planning a post with about five film reviews in for the last few weeks, but since it takes me about as long to write one of these bally things as it does to watch the films themselves, they can just go up one at a time and stretch out a bit. First up, Edward Scissorhands gone wrong.

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

I've been a Tim Burton freak ever since he rocked my 12-year-old world with Batman back in 1989 (let's just gloss over how bogglingly long ago that is) and aside from a couple of patchy films (the surprisingly bland Sleepy Hollow, the rather pointless Planet of the Apes) the majority of his work has been fantastic, in every sense of the word. Plus he made Edward Scissorhands, indisputably the Greatest Film Ever Made (according to a survey of one, me). The hints of horror in his films have always been enjoyable but I've always wanted to see what would happen if he let that darkness loose upon a whole film - oh, I would wistfully dream, for an 18-rated Burton film. And now we've got one. Hooray! But is it any cop?

DUH. Of course it is. Even by Burton's usual standards, it's a stunning film to look at, depicting a London deep in shadows, squalor and grime, barely lit by feeble gaslights. Much of the film is almost monochromatic, the protagonists pale and drawn, any colours faded and stained - except for the bright, vivid spurts of deep red blood and the scarlet gore of ripped windpipes that appear with increasing frequency. The story - come now, you know the story - allows Burton and his cast to plumb the depths of nastiness, only letting the briefest flashes of light or humour to shine before plunging elbow-deep back into the gory gloom. The throat-cuts, when they come, are explicit, nasty and tangible, not much better than the one at the beginning of Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, and when the bodies fall to the cellar, there's something teeth-grindingly horrible about the heads slamming into the ground. The film pulls no punches with the increasing horror of the story, and thank goodness for that.

It's a dream cast too. Burton and Johnny Depp go together like a gothic Roobarb and Custard, while Helena Bonham-Carter seems to have been made for films like this, her skin like porcelain surrounded by shadow, fragile and jagged. This is no film for subtlety, and all the performances are justifiably cranked up to ten, with Timothy Spall making a wonderfully vile slimeball, all violence and leer, and Alan Rickman notches up another bastard role with typical perfection. Kudos too for Baron Sacha Cohen, giving the film the closest it gets to out-and-out comedy before coming to a suitably sticky end.

Then there's the singing. And there's lots of it. Because Sweeney Todd is a musical, something which apparently had escaped a few startled cinemagoers (but if you're not going to take the time to check what a film's about before you go to the cinema, you've only got yourself to blame) but is common knowledge to anyone who's heard of Stephen Sondheim . On the surface it's an extremely peculiar mix, musical numbers and ripped throats, but for me it worked just right. There are none of the full-on multi-cast Busby-Berkeleyesque routines that you'd normally get in a musical, the songs instead focusing on just one or two characters. Indeed, at times they're like an internal monologue put to music, revealing the tortured minds in both word and portentous melody. I can't imagine anyone who loathes musicals enjoying this film, because it is a musical, albeit one with buckets of blood and viscera. If you ask me, the ideal audience for Sweeney Todd would be fans of both My Fair Lady and Evil Dead 2 (as I opined at the time). Thankfully, as those are both superb films, it was right up my cobbled, rat-infested, sewage-strewn street. And you never look at Greggs the same way after, which can only be a good thing.

What's That Floating In The Water?

Not old Neptune's only daughter - it's a teaser poster for the next animated feature from Studio Ghibli by the godlike genial genius that is Hayao Miyazaki.

The film will be called Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo On A Cliff) and is reportedly about a goldfish princess who wants to become human.  There's an official website, but as it's completely in Japanese you may prefer to check out the Wikipedia page or Nausicaa.net, while keeping up with the news at GhibliWorld.  The prospect of a Miyazaki film using a distinct handpainted watercolour look is tantalising indeed, and could end up being the non plus ultra of the underwater-animated-feature genre alongside Finding Nemo, The Little Mermaid and Help I Am A Fish, a film only notable for being translated into French as Gloups! Je Suis Un Poisson! which is exceedingly satisfying to say out loud, preferably in an outraged French accent.  Go ahead, try it!

Technorati Tags: ghibli, miyazaki

Don't Watch That, Watch These

Tiptoeing back into blogland after being off with the lurgee, here's three fine pieces of moving pictureness to tickle your eyes and cuddle your cranium.

First up, remember this post (and the hurried follow-up)? Months after that tease of a teaser, there's now a full trailer for what has been finally titled Cloverfield. By all appearances it is indeed a big mad monster movie, played for genuine frights a la the good bits of Spielberg's War of the Worlds. There's still sod-all sight of the monster in question in this trailer, but an awful lot of noise and destruction, plus watch out for the tantalising hint of parasitic nastiness splattering forth from within people, hopefully reminiscent of what happens to hosts in the excellent Resident Evil 4. Considering the apparent format of the film - discovered footage after the event - this could either end up an embarrassing wasted opportunity or a genuinely terrifying success. Fingers and tentacles crossed for the latter. NICE BIG 20MB TRAILER - or for HD click here and select your preferred size.

Meanwhile, in small-screen YouTube land, tip of the hat to Gorilla vs Bear for spotlighting this fan-made video for Radiohead's All I Need, a particularly lovely track from the excellent In Rainbows album. It's been made by editing together footage from Microcosmos, a feature-length nature documentary made by the same team behind Winged Migration and March of the Penguins (let's just pretend that was a silent film, shall we?). It's a cracking piece of work, marrying the music and insect footage together surprisingly well. Go on, have a watch.

Wasn't that nice? I'll tell you what else is nice - three little kittens having an adventure in the back garden, narrated in Japanese (and thankfully subtitled), soundtracked with Joe Hisashi's music from My Neighbour Totoro. See how they scamper, eyes boggling at the scary size of the outside world! Spotted, inevitably, on Cute Overload.

And, to balance that sweetness out, here's the finest opening to any film this year. Though it never got a proper showing on this side of the Atlantic, I quite enjoyed the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, being just as wilfully senseless, surreal and unapologetically obscure as any episode in the series. The best part of the whole film comes right at the beginning and has absolutely chuff-all to do with the movie itself, being a parody of those pre-feature animated segments selling horrendously overpriced and dubiously cooked refreshments from the cinema lobby. Here, though, the music is performed by rock daemons Mastodon and the lyrics are pure perfection (though sadly censored - boo!). "DON'T TALK, WATCH!" Too right. When I'm King, this'll play at the start of every film in the cinema.

Briefly...

I'd planned on writing proper reviews of the four films I saw over the last few days, not to mention the special guest appearances, but time just hurtles past like a sausage on a skateboard and the Lass & I are trundling down south to Ilkleyland for the next few days. So, for now, here's the briefest of thoughts:

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM: Absolutely full-on cinematic adrenaline, incredibly intense. Enormously recommended.
RATATOUILLE: Quite possibly the best Pixar film yet made, neither Paris nor food has ever looked so good. Animated genius, utterly glorious.
KNOCKED UP: One of the finest comedies this decade. Relentlessly laugh-out-loud funny yet astonishingly sweet, true and affecting. Recommended to everyone.
STARDUST: Imaginative, energetic, stuffed-to-the-gills fantasy. Features a superb Best Supporting performance by the Isle of Skye.

Full wordy stuff to come on the other side of the moors. Heathcliff! It's me! So co-ho-ho-hold!